


In the Blood

by Jmeelee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, Hunters, Kidnapping, Knotting, M/M, Mates, Mating, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sterek Week 2017, Torture, Wolf Derek Hale, sterekmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 10:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12529376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jmeelee/pseuds/Jmeelee
Summary: Inside the dank cell, Derek no longer feels his pack. He figures this most likely means his whole family is dead.Normally, the feeling ofpack pack packthrobs like the beat of his heart, swims in the blood pumping through his veins. It is his lifeline in a violent sea, but it has gone eerily silent. The absence of sound is as cold and lonely as the night sky during a new moon, and Derek is losing hope that anyone is coming to rescue him from this living hell.





	In the Blood

**Author's Note:**

> For Sterek Week 2017 Day 4: Mates
> 
> This fic got pretty dark, but I do think it has a hopeful ending. Please see the end notes for more information if you are concerned about the rape/non-con or torture tag. Also, I tried to tag as best I could, but please let me know if you want anything else tagged.

Inside the dank cell, Derek no longer feels his pack. He figures this most likely means his whole family is dead.

Normally, the feeling of _pack pack pack_ throbs like the beat of his heart, swims in the blood pumping through his veins. It is his lifeline in a violent sea, but it has gone eerily silent. The absence of sound is as cold and lonely as the night sky during a new moon, and Derek is losing hope that anyone is coming to rescue him from this living hell.

He keeps track of the passing days not by the sun; no, he hasn't seen daylight in over half a year. His cell is not soundproof, at least not fully, so he monitors the hunters and doctors that come and go in shifts from the compound, and flicks out a claw to carve a tally mark on the chipped brick wall.

His prison consists of a cot with no blanket, pillow or sheet, which he almost never lays on, that’s bolted to a concrete floor littered with dark stains. A steel latrine is anchored to one bare, grey wall. The wall opposite his cot is bulletproof one-way glass. It is shatterproof. He learned that fact while repeatedly throwing his whole body against it in vain those first weeks of captivity. There are tiny, inconspicuous digital cameras and wireless speakers recessed into the unreachable ceiling. The hunters and doctors employed at this facility are always watching, always listening. There may not be any bars in sight, but Derek is undoubtedly an endangered animal trapped in a dreary, high-tech cage.

They feed him stale, room temperature water and lumps of grizzly half-cooked meat, that they throw on the dirty floor through a small opening in his cell door. Some days the meat is poisoned, but thankfully the contamination is easy for Derek to sniff out. When he had first been dragged in, still woozy from the tranquilizer they had shot him with, they had dressed him in hospital scrubs and plain white socks, but the clothes had been shredded during his first shift in captivity, and he hasn't bothered to dress again. He is used to nudity, more comfortable in his own skin, whether man or wolf. And god knows he’ll receive no comfort here, so he might as well grab ahold of whatever solace he can while he is still alive. 

Most days they experiment on him. The hunters with their gun chambers full of wolfsbane bullets chain him to the walls of the medical and observation rooms, while the doctors interrogate him with rapid-fire questions, and poke and prod his human form. They stick syringes full of drugs into his veins and various instruments into his body, testing his reactions and pain threshold. He growls at them, snaps his teeth, and on the very bad days he screams until his voice is hoarse and tears sting his cracked lips, but he never talks to them. Never answers any of their queries. 

_How large is your pack?_  
_How many werewolf packs are there in California? On the west coast? In the US?_  
_Were you born a werewolf?_  
_Who is your Alpha?_

They test him physically, bring his body to the breaking point only to let him heal and start all over again the following day. Derek thinks he could handle years of this torture, if necessary, as long as the hope of rescue from his pack still remains. But now that he can’t feel them, knows that he is turning into an omega, one way or another, he worries. He is scared, and tries to safeguard his weakness lest the hunters know how close they are to breaking him. Derek knows it's the psychological shitshow they put him through, the humans they throw into the cell with him during the full moons, hoping he will maim them, bite them, rip them apart, that will ultimately break him. 

He is a ticking bomb. It is only a matter of time. 

+++

The first human is male, a curly mop of hair flopping on top of his head. His face and clothes are dirty, he has a broken nose and collarbone, his ankle is sprained, and he is wearing one sock on his left foot that has a hole in the toe. He stinks of rage and pain and fear, and begs Derek for death. 

Derek paces his cell, keeping as far away from the cowering human as the tiny room allows. The wolf is bristling, clawing just under his skin. Derek the human is angry, so Derek the wolf is enraged. It wants out; out of Derek’s skin, out of confinement. It wants to disembowel anyone standing in its way. 

He thinks of his Alpha, her warm amber eyes and peaceful, kind face, the honeyed timbre of her voice whispering, _“You are a predator, but you don’t have to be a killer.”_

_I’m not a killer._  
_I’m not a killer._  
_I’m not a killer._

He holds those words in his throat like a scream when his bones start to crack and he tears at his clothes.

In the morning, Derek wakes up naked, curled up under his cot. There is blood under his fingernails, but it is his own. The human is asleep in the corner, untouched. 

The hunters who come to gather the boy look disappointed. 

+++

He hates all the hunters, but he hates the female called Kate the most. 

There is more than one woman at the compound, of course, but none are worse than her. Derek would rather face the abuse of a thousand doctors than spend five minutes in the presence of this sadist. 

Electrocution is her second favorite form of mistreatment, and she chains him by the arms, legs and neck to the walls of a cage in one of the observation rooms, and shaves him down. “You look so _young_ ,” she says while she attaches electrodes all over his bare body. She turns it to the highest setting, listens to his screams and howls with a manic smile slashing across her face. After, she flicks her hair over her shoulders and licks the sweat dripping down the cut of his abs, and then the real torture begins.

She uncaps a bottle of lubricant, peels off her pants and rubs herself between her thighs while she kneels in front of him. He gnashes his teeth at her, yowls and thrashes against his restraints, but it’s no use. She takes him into her foul mouth, works him until instinct takes over and his cock grows hard on her tongue. Some days it takes a long, long time, and those days he wants to cry in anguish. So after a few sessions with Kate he stops fighting, hangs limply by his chains and just lets his body react, in order to get it all over with.

“This is fun,” she tells him as she bends over, guiding him into her slick heat. “I love how much you hate me, Derek. And I love how no matter what happens, you will always remember _this_.”

After, the guards are pulling him away as Kate buttons up her jeans. Derek speaks for the first time.

“I will remember,” he tells her, voice rusty and tender from disuse, and she smiles at him with swollen, abused lips. He fights the urge to vomit, sickened with helpless fury. “I’ll remember, and when I escape, I will kill each and every one of you. But I will save you for last.”

Her laughter follows him down the hall. 

+++

 _What do you prefer in a partner?_ The doctors ask. _Women? Men? Both?_

He growls at them.

_Kids? Animals?_

He flashes his eyes and drops his fangs. The doctors takes notes on their tablets, humming in interest.

+++

The second human is a petite blonde with frizzy hair and acne scaring her cheeks and chin. She’s sick, he can tell; the smell of her is sour and it isn’t due to a lack of cleanliness. Something is very wrong with her brain. She shakes like a leaf, and cries for her mother.

In the morning, Derek wakes on top of the cot, and there is blood, human blood, but Derek is not the cause. The girl has had a seizure, bitten though her tongue, and now lays prostrate on the floor, awake but unblinking. She’s pissed herself, a dark pungent stain spreading on the crotch of her sweatpants. 

He approaches her slowly, wants to make sure she is okay, or as okay as she could ever be in this hellhole, but the hunters burst in with batons and compound bows and silver-tipped arrows and mountain ash. 

He backs away, and lets them drag her out to whatever fate awaits her. Derek doubts it is anything good. One way or another, she is marked for death.

They leave the puddle of urine on the floor.

+++

_What do you normally eat?_  
_How fast can you run?_  
_How far can you hear? See? Smell?_  
_Why do your eyes flash blue, instead of gold?_  
_Do you grieve for your family?_

+++

In the middle of the third month, Derek makes his one and only attempt to escape. He barely makes it down the hall, felled by taser wands and a wolfsbane bullet to the left bicep. 

The bullet is surgically removed but the aftereffects of the poison cause delusions, and two doctors are mortally wounded before Derek is sedated and thrown back into his windowless dungeon. 

When he wakes, weak and disoriented, Kate is there, laughing. 

+++

The next three cellmates are male. One is human, large, bigger even than Derek. In the morning, this one is standing over him, using a wet washcloth to wipe away blood from the bruising on Derek’s knuckles. Derek does not know where the washcloth and water came from, nor does he know how he busted up his hands. The separation between man and beast is starting to blur, and it terrifies him. 

“Looks like the shift hurts,” the human says, gently. Derek’s grunt is his only reply. “I wouldn’t mind the pain,” the human tell him as he tosses the washcloth into the corner, “if it meant I’d get teeth and claws like that. There are a few people I’d like to tear into right about now.”

The next two cellmates are not human. 

One is an omega werewolf, face and hands seemingly stuck in beta form. He prowls the cell, pacing and snarling.

“I can help you, help you control it,” Derek tells him in a voice too low for human ears to hear, but the teen just snarls and continues to pace.

That night, Derek has no trouble remembering his shift, or the ensuing fight between himself and the omega. Derek wins, pinning the boy to the cement floor and holding his fangs to the tendons straining the boy's neck until his thrashing finally stops, and he exposes his belly to Derek in submission. But Derek does not escape the fight without wounds. They take days to heal, instead of hours. It is one of his first signs that his body is weakening, that a change is coming. If a beta can barely beat an omega, something is very, very wrong. 

Derek does not know what, exactly, the next boy is, but whatever he is, it’s an abomination. He is something _wrong_. 

Derek drops to his haunches, immediately shifting into beta form and baring his teeth with a snarl. The boy is handsome, tall, haughty; he bangs on the one way glass and makes empty threats and demands. An hour later, the hunters return, beat the boy to the ground and slap a collar on his neck and heavy metal chains around his torso. 

“Doing you a favor, Hale,” one hunter sneers as they drag the boy away. “Don’t think you would have outlasted this one.”

Derek kind of wishes they had left the creature, if only so this nightmare could finally be over. 

+++

_How many languages can you speak?_  
_Do you communicate telepathically?_  
_Do you mate for life, like actual wolves?_  
_If we cut off your arm, would it grow back?_

+++

“You don’t attack any of the playmates we throw in with you,” Kate says, wonderingly, as she strips off her clothes. 

“I am not an animal,” he snarls, tears, snot and blood dripping from his nose into his mouth.

“Oh, Derek, honey.” She pats his cheek, and he doesn't even bother trying to bite off her fingers. “Whether in human form or beast, all men are animals. It’s in the blood.” 

+++

 _Do you retain human consciousness in wolf form?_  
_Why can you transform into a full wolf, and others can not?_  
_Do you fear death? No? What do you fear?_  
_We will find out._

+++

They throw in another female. She’s naked, and bleeding steadily from a wound on her leg, but she’s hellfire with long, disheveled red hair. 

“I will kill you if you come near me,” she screams. Derek lays down on his cot, but isn’t dumb enough to turn his back. She is small, but fierce. Derek doesn’t doubt she would be a challenge to take down. 

After so many months, the wolf longs for a challenge, both mental and physical. It wants to stalk, and hunt. The need feels almost feral. 

The wolf likes the smell of the blood smearing her thighs. 

It is going to be a long night. 

+++

The morning of the seventh full moon they take a silver-tipped whip to his back and buttocks, to his chest and thighs, but he is still in better shape than the guy they throw into his cell mid-afternoon. 

The boy stumbles in, pushed through the door by one of the more brutal hunters. Someone has beaten the ever-loving fuck out of this guy, and he sways on his feet for all of five seconds before he starts to topple. Before Derek even realizes he is moving, he darts forward to catch the boy before he hits the ground. Derek scoops up the moaning man into a bridal carry and places him gently on his cot, then retreats to lean back against the door to his cell, and squats down with his knees pressed up under his chin. 

He is unsettled, perhaps more so than he has been from any other roommate they have saddled him with. There is something about his mindless reaction to this kid that bothers Derek, needles at the thin skin at the back of his neck. There’s something strange in his head and something painful in his chest, twisting up tight and sharp. It's not only the strange smell of the boy. If he concentrates, he swears he can almost feel a difference in the stale air, a change in pressure, in the vibrations. He starts to pant, even though the shift is still hours away.

What test are the hunters giving him with this human? Derek doesn’t know, and he's starting to get frightened.

+++

The human sleeps through Derek’s shift, and sleeps most of the following day as well. No one comes to claim him, and Derek gets edgier with every passing minute the man remains in his cell.

When he finally awakens, he sits up in bed with a loud groan. He is a hair shorter than Derek, but wiry in body with plain brown hair. His eyes are surprisingly warm for being an unimaginative brown; there are specks of yellow in the iris that reminds Derek of a beta’s golden glow. His right eye is swollen shut, and the left eye hasn’t fared much better, but he squints, eye jumping around the room, taking in the cameras and spartan living space, pressing his busted lips together in contemplation when his eye finally lands on Derek. Scent rolls off him in waves, reaching out to Derek and retreating, only to surge back again; anxiety, fatigue, anger, but Derek detects no fear. He stumbles out of bed on legs as shaky as a newborn foal, and makes for the latrine on the wall without affording Derek another glance. 

As soon as the stream of urine hits the bowl, Derek is plastered to the guy’s back.

“What the hell, man?” he squeaks, cutting off mid-stream. “Can’t a dude take a piss in pseudo privacy?”

“There is blood in your urine,” Derek says, sniffing. 

“I’m well aware, dickface. Back up off me. Now!” Derek peels himself off the young man’s back, stepping to the side, but staying unnaturally close. The guy grimaces, reopening his split lip with the action. In an unsettling turn of events, Derek leans in, quick and sudden, and drags his tongue over the welling bloody, tasting iron, salt and something sweet and addicting. The desire to move never even registered in his conscience, and he startles back as soon as he realizes he’s breaking about a dozen social norms, eyes wide.

“Wha?” The boys says, distractedly.

Derek frowns and sniffs some more. “Pee,” he commands gruffly, praying the boy will pretend the last ten seconds never happened.

He looks down at his penis, then back up at Derek, bringing a hand with bruised knuckles up to brush two fingers against his soft, wet lip. “You’re giving me stage fright, man. You gotta turn around.”

Derek snarls, but turns his back, staring at the drab walls of his cell. “Piss for me,” he demands again.

“Jesus fucking… I’m trying, asshole. Shut the fuck up. Where’s some running water when you need it? Hotel Argent is getting a seriously shitty review from me.” His babbling is annoying, but it does the job of relaxing him enough to start the stream of urine again. Derek sniffs the air, and the man huffs.

“No internal bleeding,” Derek sighs in relief. “Just bruised kidneys.”

“Thanks for the diagnosis, doc,” he snarks. “I take it you’re of the four-legged variety, if you can smell what's coming out of my dick. And the blood-licking thing. That was creepy, by the way, and a total invasion of privacy.” Derek hears him shake, then tuck himself back into his pants and hobble toward the cot. “I also take it this is your bed I’m commandeering?” 

Derek finally turns around, and watches the young man slowly settle down on his cot. He doesn’t seem to care or need a response from Derek, just closes his eyes with a sigh.

The wolf either wants to drag him out of the bed by the scruff of his neck, or curl up with him and make a nest. Derek can't determine which it is. Maybe it's both.

“I’m Stiles,” the boy says. “Don’t eat me while I nap, okay big-bad?” 

Stiles’ breathing evens out in less than a minute, and he sleeps for twenty hours straight. 

No one comes to collect him.

+++ 

No one comes for them for two weeks. During this time Stiles shares Derek's water and meat, and talks until Derek is afraid he will go mad. Maybe this was the hunters plan- throw in a spastic teenager and force Derek to claw his own ears off his head. 

He finally places the weird smell he noticed the first night. It was chemicals, ADHD medicine. Stiles tells Derek he was kidnapped while leaving his high school lacrosse game. He was held in a basement for less than twenty-four hours, then beaten and brought directly to Derek’s cell. The others, Derek surmises, must have been in the compound for long enough that any daily medications, vitamins or chemicals of any sort had left their systems and clothes. 

Turns out all the incessant jabbering sheds some light on Derek’s past cell mates. The omega is Stiles’ best friend, Scott, who was bitten this past year. He had been dating a hunter, a girl named Allison Argent, and her grandfather is the one who kidnapped Stiles, and the one Stiles claims owns this facility. Derek knows all about the Argent family, has been listening to fractured fairy tales told to him and his siblings about the old family of hunters since he was a child. They were cautionary tales, meant to teach fledgling werewolves the difference between the good and evil people in this unfair world, but they did none of the Hale’s any good. 

Based on Stiles’ description of her, Derek has not seen Allison in the almost eight months he has been held captive. The other teenagers had been school mates and friends of Stiles, gone missing at random intervals in the past year. Derek can find no rhyme or reason to the Argent’s victims, but there is something there, an unfamiliar instinct that calls to the wolf and tells Derek there is a pattern here he isn’t seeing, something about these kids that is important. 

At week two of having a roommate, the hunters barge in and haul out both Derek and Stiles, dragging them down opposite hallways. Derek hardly struggles anymore, but Stiles kicks and screams and seems to have an endless array of creative curses to call the hunters. 

Derek is chained up in the shower room and hosed off with freezing cold water. He is still blinking water droplets off his eyelashes when Kate comes in to dirty him up once again.

He finds Stiles already back in their cell when he is thrown through the door later that day. Stiles’ hair is wet and he is dressed in fresh clothes that smell like cheap laundry detergent, but he doesn't look hurt. The relief Derek feels is palpable. Stiles stands when he sees Derek, eyes going wide with panic at the sight of Derek so broken. Derek doesn't say anything, just drops to his knees and crawls under the cot, his preferred hiding place after Kate encounters. Somehow it hurts worse, having someone here to witness his shame. 

Stiles hangs upside down off the cot, and whispers Derek's name a few times, but Derek turns away from him, curling up and facing the wall. After a while Stiles stops saying his name, doesn't say anything at all, and the silence allows Derek to wallow in hopeless brooding. 

He has never been one for religion, and wants nothing to do with any god that would allow this kind of suffering to unfold, but there is one thing he can think of to be thankful for: if Kate was busy hurting him, at least she wasn't touching Stiles. 

+++

Stiles is standing in the corner, hands on his hips, yelling at one of the microphones mounted in the ceiling.

“I’m fucking bored in here, assholes. How about some magazines? A deck of cards? Checkers or chess? You may have gotten away with depriving sourwolf over here of any entertainment for seven months, but my ass is gonna drive you all _crazy_ if you don't give me something to do.”

At the next meal time, a packet of plastic coated cards is thrown into the cell, landing on top of their meat. Stiles lights up like a Christmas tree, and proceeds to skip dinner and play forty-two games of solitaire before he ropes Derek into playing kings in the corner, go fish, ratscrew and old maid. Derek somehow loses every game, and is pretty sure Stiles cheats at cards. 

That night, Derek sleeps four consecutive hours- his longest stretch when not tranquilized- and wakes to find Stiles sitting guard between Derek and the door, shuffling the deck. Stiles is not special, Derek warns himself as he watches him, pink tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration as he slides the cards from palm to palm. They are just two people, thrown together by terrible circumstance. Fate is not at work here. There is no special reason the hunters have left him in the cell all month. Yet there is something about him that nags at the wolf, who prowls closer and closer to the surface with each passing day. The way he speaks, the way he holds himself, the way he smiles and they way he smells.

Something hot and bright and terrible burns inside Derek, and his eyes and chest and throat all ache with it. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

_Pack pack pack._

The next shift will be different, Derek knows. 

Stiles makes a startled little noise when he finally notices Derek is awake and staring at him, but then he smiles, a small private thing. Something warm unfurls at the nape of Derek’s neck. He rolls back over, and lets himself be lulled by the soft scrape of plastic against Stiles’ fingertips. 

Stiles never stops shuffling. 

+++

He waits to see if Stiles will finish his portion of the meat, and always offers him more if he is still hungry. Right now he is watching Stiles as he munches slowly, eyes closed.

“Know what food I miss the most?” Stiles asks, mouth full of half-chewed grizzle.

Derek doesn't answer, but by now Stiles can read his silences.

“Curly fries. I miss curly fries. Why is it the fries you find at the bottom of the bag always taste the best?” He opens his eyes and looks imploringly at Derek, who simply shrugs. “Thank god I have all this free time to ponder life’s greatest mysteries, since you are no help.”

“Cookies,” Derek says, and immediately hates himself for speaking. How does Stiles always pull words and feelings and actions from him? It's alarming. 

“Cookies? What about cookies?”

“They are what I miss the most.” He glances towards the one-way mirror, then looks away. What harm can this asinine piece of information do in the hands of the hunters anyway? “My mom’s chocolate chip cookies, to be exact. She always made them with extra chunks of chocolate and sea salt sprinkled on top. She only cooked them for a few minutes, and most of the time it was like I was eating warm cookie dough. They were perfect.” Derek will never taste them again, and the memory turns to ash in his mouth.

Stiles looks shell shocked. “Dude, I think that's the most words you’ve ever spoken- at least to me.” 

Derek fights the urge to blush. His sisters had always joked about how quiet and shy he was growing up. He talks; just only when he has something important to say. Stiles picking at him good-naturedly feels strangely personal, like something family or loved ones would do.

Derek stands and moves to his cot, lying down on his back. Stiles follows a few minutes after, sits tentatively at the edge of the bed. With slow, careful movements, Stiles leans his back against the wall, and shifts Derek's feet into his lap. Derek allows the movements, the intimate sharing of space. He can feel the wolf stirring, enjoying their close proximity.

“Is this okay?” Stiles whispers, once they are settled, limbs twined together.

“Fine,” Derek replies.

He wants to laugh, he wants to cry. He wants one of his Alpha’s chocolate chip cookies. 

Nothing will ever be fine again.

+++

“Did the hunters do something to you… physically?” Stiles asks one afternoon, a few days before the full moon. They are laying together on the cot again, and the words are whispered against Derek’s ear. 

Derek grunts, pushing images of Kate’s mouth and hands firmly from his mind. “What don’t they do?”

Stiles is trying to teach himself card tricks, and mindlessly flicks a card in and out of his shirtsleeve. 

“No, I mean, I _know_. But have they done something...different?”

“It’s always different. They pride themselves on creative new torture methods.” Derek darts his eyes toward the one-way glass over his shoulder, then back to Stiles. Why is Stiles asking him this? Derek’s been feeling especially _off_ , more wolf than man, the call of pack pulling at his bones again, but he doesn't dare let the hunters or doctors know. He has kept this information closely guarded, barely acknowledged it, or what it could possibly mean, to himself. Somehow it is like Stiles just _knows_.

“Um…” Stiles’ fingers slip and the card drops to the floor. They both stare at it. “Have they fucked with your eyes? They look different to me, when you flash them.”

Derek flashes his eyes at Stiles now; the feeling of _pack pack pack_ is throbbing in his blood again. 

“Huh,” Stiles huffs, bending over the side of the cot to grab the card. “Same pretty blue. Must have been imagining it. All this romantic fluorescent lighting, you know, gets a guy seeing things.”

Derek smiles at him with a hint of fang, and is rewarded with the rapid gallop of Stiles’ heart, thumping like the beat of a song playing just for him.

+++

It is a few hours until moonrise, and the wolf is close. Too close. He is already half shifted to beta form, and his whole face aches from trying to hold back the inevitable.

“I’m sorry,” he lisps. “It’s… I’m… I don't think I can control it anymore.”

"I'm not afraid of you, Derek.” Stiles is a fool.

"You _should_ be. You have no idea how I feel, what the wolf feels. You don't know what I want to do to you right now." His voice is deeper than normal, vibrating. It makes Stiles start to shake.

“Well then, it was nice knowing you, man. I hope you make it out of here someday,” Stiles jokes in a quiet, painful voice. For all Derek’s heightened instincts, he can’t decipher the full meaning behind the small, sad smile Stiles throws his way. “If you do make it out, find my Dad, tell him… well tell him I died in some really badass way. Tell him I went down swinging, okay?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Derek moans, fingers digging gouges into his muscular thighs. He’s sweating, teeth clenched against the urge to bite and _claim_.

“I know you don’t, Derek. This isn't your fault. I don’t blame you. But if you have to, just.. I’d rather it be you, than them.”

Then Stiles does what he does best: talks. He talks to Derek for hours, about his father, his mother, the life he was stolen from, and the cadence of his voice curls around the wolf, coaxing him closer and closer, until Derek can’t hold him at bay for another second.

“Holy shit!” Stiles shrieks, scrabbling away from Derek as his skin rips open and his bones rearrange themselves. There is fear spiking in Stiles’ scent now, but there is something stronger there as well, something potent. It makes the wolf prowl, snout low to the floor, ears and lips pinned back. The human’s heart is pounding, the blood racing through his veins, his eyes wide and shifting, taking in the strong, sleek form striding stealthily toward him on silent paws.

“Oh my god,” the human reverently whispers as the wolf stalks closer. “Oh god, I really don’t want to die. Derek? Derek are you in there? You are a massive fucking black wolf right now. That was amazing. I did not think you were going to be this big. It… You…”

The human stares for another moment and then his eyes lower, his head tilts to one side, leaving the sleek smooth line of his neck vulnerable. An offer. A plea. 

“Please don’t fucking kill me or at least do it really quick please I don’t want to bleed out slow or suffer for days like my mother did I just… Derek? Derek what the fuck are you… oh. _OH_.”

+++

The wolf growls and leaps, and the human is quickly down on his back, trapped between his body and the dirty floor. At impact, the human gives a resounding “ _Oomph_! Jeez, you are one heavy mother fucker.”

Paws and claws pin the human to cold concrete, and elongated canines dripping saliva snap in his face. _Submit submit submit... mine... the human must submit_. The boy stretches his head farther to the side, surrendering, and the growls rumbling the chest of the wolf turns to a vibrating purr. 

If they were free, out on the preserve with his pack, the wolf would give chase. The boy would run. This is not at all how anything is supposed to be, but instinct is taking over the wolf, spurred on by the human’s scent, strong and syrupy in the enclosed space they have shared for two moons. The cloying clinical smells are still there, but they are buried underneath the mingled scent of _Derek Stiles Derek Stiles DerekStiles_. Even the bed in the corner reeks of them.

Now that the wolf is here, everything is that much sweeter, headier and heavier. He finally understands what is happening here.

Derek’s pack is dead. The wolf is making a new pack, starting with its mate, who is currently squirming underneath him. 

_Mate mate mate._

The thought, the acknowledgement, shoots sparks though the wolf’s gut, sharp and hot as a deep stab wound. It’s not right, subjecting this boy to a life sentence as his mate, to share this fate worse than death. Even now the doctors and hunters are watching them; the wolf can hear them exclaiming and rushing around behind the one-way glass. He and his mate should be alone in the woods, the only witness should be the face of the moon. 

The wolf whines, presses its muzzle into the thin skin over the human’s pulse point and sniffs. Warm sweaty skin, hot rushing blood, and pounding heartbeat, an intoxicating cocktail drowning the wolf, making it thirst for more.

_Mine mine mine._

He presses in harder, licks at the skin, but it isn’t enough to curb the craving. Sharp claws drag down the human’s chest, shredding his t-shirt in order to expose more pale skin, more delicious scent. 

The human cries out, in alarm but not in pain. “Wait, wait. Let the guy without Freddy Krueger fingernails remove all articles of clothing, okay big guy?”

The wolf sits back reluctantly, allowing the human a minimum of space. The wolf cocks its head to the side, observing the human struggle to its elbows to pull off the offending article of clothing. His head gets stuck in the t-shirt, and the wolf lets out a huff.

The human looks at him askew. “Was that… did you just laugh at me?”

In answer, the wolf paws at the human’s pants.

“Okay okay. Geez, off they go. Put away the razors, please.”

Finally, finally, the human is bare, and he lays back down, tilting his head to the side again.

The wolf is back on him in a flash, covering the smaller body with his warm fur, nose tucking back into the human’s throat. He is trying to cover his mate from the hunters’ prying eyes. No one else should look at his mate, so sleek and beautiful, but it can not be helped. A tentative hand comes up to stroke the fur behind his ears, and the wolf stills, panting humid breaths against his mate’s protruding collarbone. The human pays him no mind, just sighs out a breath and continues to stroke at his head, down to his nape. The gentle touch is insistent, but not a challenge. The wolf shivers. 

_Mate mate mate._ He can no longer ignore the call, witnesses be damned. 

His nose leaves a wet trail down into his mate’s armpit, where the skin is soft and thin with veins, and the smell of male is strong. His mate squirms but doesn’t push him away, just keeps stroking his fur. Any scent of fear or panic the boy had felt at first sight of the wolf is gone. The wolf leans forward and licks a broad stripe across his mate’s cheek, and the answering laugh is beautiful. He hasn't heard laughter from anyone but Kate in almost a year, and the sound is like a first sip of cool water in the desert; he can feel it trickling through his chest, soothing the blackened and burned out heart beneath his ribs 

From there he explores head, arms, chest, and stomach with nose and tongue, leaving his own saliva and scent smeared across the human’s body, ensuring anyone who comes near him will know; he belongs to someone else. There can be no mistake. 

When the wolf reaches his mate’s groin, Stiles’ legs fall open in compliance. He can feel the blood rushing just beneath the surface of this delicate, velvet skin.

“I’m not gonna lie,” his mate says through clenched teeth, “this isn’t how I thought tonight was going to go.”

The smell here is powerful and strong, and the wolf wastes no time exploring. His mate whimpers and sighs and jerks with every swipe of his tongue. He has two hands fisting the wolf's fur now, pulling at it when the wolf laps at the pre-cum beading at the head of his cock, but the pain is miniscule, easily ignored compared to the rich spike in scent he detects as he licks lower and lower. 

He nuzzles and licks at the testicles drawn up tight to the human's body, then ventures lower, shouldering a leg onto his broad back to lap at his mate’s hole.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” his mate chants, then releases one hand from the wolf's fur to grab at his own cock, curving up toward his taut stomach, stroking it fast and furious, until he releases his cum all over his own hand and belly. 

The wolf stops its ministrations, raising up on its haunches to stare at his sated human, laying boneless underneath him with blown pupils and hooded eyes. He tips his head to the side, sniffs the air. The scent is hot as liquid gold, spilling down his spine and making his body melt. It is perfect. His mate is perfect.

He leans forward, licking up all the cum from the webs of his mates fingers, from the abdomen and pubic hair, making sure he does not miss even one drop of his seed.

The wolf can hear the doctors and hunters on the other side of the wall whispering.

_Should we wake Kate?_  
_Should we tell Gerald?_  
_Let’s wait until morning, until after the shift, and see what happens then._

What will happen, the wolf wants to howl at them, is that Derek will fully claim his mate. But that is still hours off, so the wolf covers over his human, protecting him from prying eyes and whispering voices in the only way he can. 

Soon, the hand is back at his neck, stroking, and the wolf closes its eyes.

+++

Stiles is dozing fitfully underneath him, and jerks awake in the small hours before dawn, when Derek shifts back.

They stare at each other, and Stiles’ eyes slide down his body as they have never done before, pausing to take in the sight of the hard cock hanging between Derek’s thighs. 

“I knew you wouldn’t kill me,” Stiles whispers when his eyes make it back to Derek’s face.

“ _You_ might kill _me_ ,” Derek answers.

“I don’t think so,” Stiles replies, and crawls into Derek’s lap. “Make no mistake, I think death is nipping at both our heals. But we have some more living to do before it tears us down.”

His mate is grinding down onto Derek’s erection, and Stiles’ breath catches when Derek gives a little growl. “There are some things you should know, Stiles, before we do this.”

“They don’t matter, Derek,” he says, threading his fingers into the silky black hair at Derek’s nape. 

“They do matter,” he growls. “I could hurt you.”

“If you’re referring to your dick, it’s not going to surprise me. My best friend is a werewolf, remember? I know you have a knot.” He pulls at Derek’s hair and grinds down again.

“Do you also know wolves mate for life, Stiles?” he gasps out, arms stealing around Stiles’ middle, holding him in place. “My wolf didn’t choose any of the others they threw in with me. It didn’t touch them, or go near them. But it couldn’t stay away from you, from the moment you were thrown in here with me. It _chooses_ you.”

Stiles leans back as far as the circle of Derek’s arms will allow. He smiles.

“Well then, until death do us part. Like I said, it’s not my first rodeo with all this crazy werewolf shit. Now, do it, Derek. _Do it_.” 

Derek can deny his mate nothing.

There is nothing to ease the way except spit and stretching fingers and patience, so Derek wastes no time revisiting Stiles’ hole, his human tongue now giving rhythmic licks and sucks, pressing gently around the rim. Once Stiles is wet enough, he pushes in fingers to stretch him open, tongue lapping in between the digits. Throughout it all, Stiles, laying on his stomach with his face pressed into the cot, is saying some garbled variation of Derek’s name, thighs trembling under Derek's chest. 

“Do it,” Stiles demands again, some indeterminable amount of time later. Surrounded by their mingled scents, Derek’s thoughts are slow and thick. “Derek, _please_.”

Derek kisses a slow, sucking path up Stiles’ spine, pulling him to his knees, ass presented in the air, but holding him down at the shoulders and neck. When Stiles starts to squirm, Derek digs his fingers into his neck and presses, holding Stiles down like an unruly pup.  
With a whining little keen Stiles goes limp and pliant beneath him.

The press in is long and slow, with Derek stopping to wet Stiles with his tongue over and over. 

The pressure of Stiles’ warm, welcoming body sheathing his dick inch by inch has him groaning and biting his lip. When he finally bottoms out, he lets out a sob, balls heavy and flush against Stiles’ tight ass.

The cell reeks of sex: pheromones, arousal, sweat, spit, Stiles, Derek, the wolf. Derek starts to move, spurred on by the sweet, shocked sound of Stiles’ moans and the ruthless clutch of his body.

The knot is growing already, catching at Stiles’ rim on every thrust. Stiles starts to jerk and spasm on every withdrawal, so Derek leans over, covers his back and places human teeth to Stiles’ neck. He bites down on the sensitive skin and shoves his knot in one last time, jamming his hips against Stiles’ ass as he ties with him. Stiles sobs out once, his whole body turning hot as a furnace beneath Derek’s, and the salty scent of tears fills the space. 

Derek releases the claiming bite. “You’re hurt?” Derek barks out, throat barely able to form words.

“No no no,” Stiles stammers. “More, I need more.” 

His body clenches around Derek's cock again and again, as though compelled. The pressure is astounding, Derek’s knot pressing up on all the spots inside Stiles his fingers could never fill. He ruts slowly against Stiles, the knot leaving little room to thrust properly. He is circling his hips, keeping the knot moving inside Stiles, rubbing up against that sensitive spot inside him. Stiles cries out as his hole clenches down on Derek’s thick cock, so deep inside him. Every time Derek moves it sets off another wave of hot, throbbing pleasure, Stiles’ ass clutching down hard. 

Derek loses track of time as he swivels his hips. The smell of their combined sweat fills his nose, the sound of their coupling obscures everything but his mate’s wild heartbeat. Derek is speaking, nonsensical ramblings of praise. Praise of Stiles’ body, his skin, his eyes, his ass, the way he feels, and his scent.

He reaches forward and grips Stiles’ cock firmly in the tight clutch of his fist, and is rewarded with little grumbling and hissing noises falling from his mates mouth, his hole clenching and unclenching harder around Derek’s dick. Stiles is so close, Derek knows, lines of tension and pressure bowing his back. Derek pulls his hand back, shushes Stiles’ dejected whine. He licks at his palm, then brings it back to Stiles’ cock, swollen nice and firm, stroking him.

He slides his lips over the bite mark he left, soothing the puffy red skin. “Just imagine it’s the wolf’s tongue,” he whispers obscenely in Stiles’ ear, and is rewarded with a whimper. “I know how much you liked the feel of that. It’s okay. He loved it too.”

Stiles groans like he is dying, and spurts all over the lumpy cot beneath them, moaning loud and endless, mouth open and wet. 

At the smell and sound, Derek loses all sense of propriety, smashing his hips into Stiles with abandon, his balls slapping against Stiles’ taint. Stiles, spent, is making needy, breathless sounds that set off fireworks inside Derek’s skull. 

He can feel it building, can feel himself coming to the edge, about to fall. The pleasure mounts so quickly it leaves him dizzy. Derek presses in one last time, wrapping his strong arms around Stiles’ lissome body, and everything explodes in light and heat. The muscles of his thighs tense and lock, and his throat chokes out a fearsome, rapturous sound, slamming deeply into Stiles and emptying his balls into his ass. He has now marked Stiles in every way a mate can be marked; with teeth and tongue and scent and cum. He is _claimed_.

Until his knot recedes, they are locked together tighter than praying hands. If any hunters or doctors walked in now, they would both be dead in seconds. Derek can't bring himself to care, though, not when he has Stiles in his arms. Derek lowers and turns them until they are spooned together on the sad excuse for a mattress. 

“Okay?” Derek asks.

“Mmm yes, better than,” Stiles slurs. 

Derek starts kissing his neck, pressing his lips into the bite mark he left on Stiles’ throat. Derek keeps kissing and hushing him until his cock stops jerking inside Stiles and the knot deflates enough that he can safely pull out. He rolls Stiles underneath him, covering him in much the same way the wolf did the night before. If the hunters come for his mate today, there will be blood. Lots of blood.

“Hey,” Stiles whispers sometime later, sounding much too lucid. “Does this mean I’m married to you, or to your wolf? Or am I married to both?”

“No one is married,” Derek says, trying not to smile.

Stiles, ignoring him as usual, carries on.

“I didn’t think I’d be into polyamory this much. Wait, does it count as beastiality if you’re a werewolf, and not a real wolf?”

“Stiles?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

+++

There is no way Stiles with his human hearing could hear the release of the lock on the cell door, but he jumps out of bed at the same time as Derek does, mirroring his defensive crouch. Derek can hear the retreating footfalls echoing down the hallway outside their chamber; they are soft, light, gentle. It’s a woman who has unlocked their door.

“Stay here,” Derek tells Stiles, who laughs.

“Like hell I will.”

Derek drops his teeth and claws and approaches the door.

The hallway outside is quiet and empty, and Derek smells blood and death coming from the observation room. Inside, he finds three doctors, arrows sticking out of their chests. Derek does not know what the fuck is going on, thinks this is probably some insane test or trap set up by the hunters, but he isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Stiles rummages around in the observation room and crows in triumph, holding aloft a wooden baseball bat he pulls out from under a desk.

“What the fuck do you plan on doing with that?” Derek asks.

“Enacting some justice. Let’s do this.”

Trap be damned. For Stiles, Derek would gladly rip apart half a hundred men, so Derek doesn't have to be told twice.

“I know just where to start,” Derek says. 

+++

The compound is asleep, the hallways deserted, like someone has sliced a swath clearing the way to their destination. Derek follows the acrid scent burned into his nostrils, and it is mere minutes before they find themselves at Kate’s door. With a soft pastel blanket tucked up under her chin and her tawny hair fanning the pillow, she looks almost innocent as she lays there, dreaming of torture. Derek grabs her by the throat.

She chokes and sputters, eyes going wide with fear when her eyes adjust to the dark and she realizes who has her.

“Do you remember when I told you I would kill you last?” Derek asks softly. 

She starts to shake and her bladder releases. The sound of the tips of her toes scraping the floor, scrambling to find leverage, is music to Derek’s ears. She scratches at his hands, leaving behind bloody gouges. Already the pale skin of her face is turning dark purple, and her bloodshot eyes are beginning to bulge. She is as ugly now on the outside as she is on the inside. 

“I lied,” he confesses, and crushes her windpipe. Her body falls to the carpet in a pathetic heap.

Derek turns back to Stiles, standing in the doorway, staring stone-faced at Kate’s dead body. He feels a small moment of panic that his mate will abhor the violence, no matter how justified it feels.

Then Stiles looks at Derek. He grins, sharp and deadly, and the wolf has never felt more free.

+++

It is nothing for Derek to move from room to room and kill the remaining hunters and doctors. The compound is smaller than Derek originally thought. Somewhere along the way he has lost sight of Stiles, but he is not worried. He can feel him now, like a phantom over his shoulder; almost like he can glimpse him out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns, Stiles isn't really there. 

He rips his torturers limb from limb, tears through throats like tissue paper and claws at chests to remove the hearts from the cruelest of the hunters. He takes great pleasure in killing Gerard, the mastermind of the Argent family and the one who’s fist marks once marred his mate’s skin. The sweetest sounds are his screams cut short into wet gurgles.

When Derek is satisfied that all the hunters are dead, he follows the pull of his heart toward his mate. He finds Stiles in the basement, picking the locks of six cages. In the corner cower two humans; a young, tall, skinny female and an older man. They smell like Kate, and Derek lets loose a vicious growl.

The whole room shivers in fright, except for Stiles, who patiently continues to work at a lock. “That is Allison Argent and her father, Chris Argent. Do not kill them. We owe them our freedom. It was Allison who killed the doctors monitoring us, after she learned what they planned to do to us, now that we are mates.” The cowering humans hug each other tighter. The wolf longs to see their blood spilled, to eradicate every piece of Argent scum, but it holds back. His mate has made a request, and it will be honored, as will any that are within his power to give. 

The last lock clicks open, and out crawl the six cellmates Derek managed not to maim. 

The omega, Scott, immediately goes to stand between Derek and the Argents, ready to defend them but not challenging Derek directly. The rest crawl right past Stiles on hands and knees, heading toward a surprised Derek. He holds out his hands, partially to warn them off, but Isaac and Erica, his first two cellmates, butt up against his outstretched hands like docile house cats. Erica rubs her bloody face against his naked leg.

“Alpha,” she sighs on an exhale. 

Oh. _Oh_. So _this_ is what Derek has been feeling growing steadily inside him since Stiles was thrown into the cell. He has a mate; he could have a pack. He is not turning omega after all. 

He is an _Alpha_. 

Derek misses his mother more in this moment than any other during his time in captivity. He can’t help but think this could be a huge mistake, turning misfit teenagers who have been tortured physically and emotionally into some kind of broken family. Or, it could be the best thing for all of them, a way to become strong, to heal. His mother, his alpha, would know what to do. But she is gone, and Derek is the alpha now, if he chooses to be.

What is right? Derek does not know. He is flying blind, and they are all looking to him, eyes wide with fear and awe. But with hope, too. 

Maybe if they have all survived this, they can survive anything together. Stiles steps up behind him, a warm solid weight at his back.

_Mate mate mate._  
_Pack pack pack._

“Do it, Derek,” Stiles whispers.

And Derek can deny him nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:In this fic, Derek is kidnapped by hunters and experimented on/tortured. Kate does rape him. While I do not think it is overly graphic, it may be triggering so please avoid this fic if you need to. There is also a somewhat graphic choking scene. I meant this to have a hopeful ending, in case that helps. There is also knotting between Derek/Stiles, but it is completely consensual .
> 
> I totally stole the line "Remember when I said I'd kill you last? I lied" from the movie Commando.  
> Title for this fic is from "In the Blood" by John Mayer


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